Extreme SEAL Experience

SEAL of Approval

Training Like a SEAL in Chesapeake, VA

When you heard about the daring accomplishments of SEAL Team 6 last weekend, you felt patriotic, proud, relieved.

You also said, “I’ve missed my calling.”

So let us tell you about the Extreme SEAL Experience, taking bookings now to let you live out your childhood commando fantasies, even the ones that involve thousands of push-ups and wading through swamps.

Owned and run by former SEALs, this is as close as you can come to SEAL training without actually enlisting. In fact, the morning after you arrive, your instructors will put you through a 24-hour “Hell Night,” derived from the SEALs’ infamous Hell Week. Think sleep deprivation, paddling miles down an Apocalypse Now–style river and hoisting a log over your head for... well, basically forever.

And when that’s done, you’ve still got six days to go, which includes such pursuits as underwater skills, close-quarter combat, climbing and two days of marksmanship training with 11 different weapons.

Your warrior skills sufficiently honed, you’ll plan and run missions across thousands of public and private acres, like hostage rescues and assaulting an old mansion. To make it a little tougher: your opponents are often guys who just returned from Afghanistan.

Of course, if this all sounds like old hat to you, you could sign up for the Sniper Course, which has you rappelling, shooting out of helicopters and navigating booby trap courses.